Thing of the Week: Tsuki the Shiba Inu, Bradford from Deerhunter, Kim Gordon Everywhere

LJ'S THING OF THE WEEK: Tsuki the Shiba Inu 

I am obsessed with wanting to buy a black Shiba Inu named Arthur. I mean, I would name him Arthur. I don't care if he came named Arthur or not. I doubt that anyone has ever named a black Shiba Inu Arthur besides me, I mean future-me, anyway; everybody always names their Shiba Inu something Japanese-esque i.e. Tsuki. Ugh. How basic. Why don't you go feed it some okonomiyaki and then name a poodle Fifi while you're at it? Just kidding. You are obviously too basic to have heard of okonomiyaki before this second.  

Anyway, I'm not being hyperbolic when I say that I'm obsessed with wanting Arthur. Whenever work is slow (I really hope my boss isn't reading this!) I stand around and look at pictures of black Shiba Inus on Google Image Search and then I save the pictures of the Shiba Inus who look most like what I want Arthur to look like to my Camera Roll, and then I look through my Camera Roll and pretend that it's the future and I've just asked someone if they'd like to see a picture of my Shiba Inu, Arthur. (I'm just kidding about really hoping that my boss isn't reading this. My boss has an uncanny ability to walk in on me Google Image Searching Shiba Inu puppies on his own. As far as my boss must be concerned, I have never done anything else.) 

My Shiba Inu obsession really took a turn for the more psychotic once I remembered about the website The Daily Puppy. I allowed myself to get to a point where I know the names and individual identities of every Shiba Inu that has ever been featured on Daily Puppy. Obviously they're all winners, to some extent, but Tsuki really brings it home. She's so spritely and alert-seeming. 

There's also this other guy, named Hachi, who I like a lot:

Hachi is disturbingly cute, obviously, but you can tell he's going to grow up to be a bit of a dullard. Just a lumpy old chewer of rawhide who stinks the car up. My Arthur's got to be of above average intelligence levels, one of those dogs who can open a door with his paw and howl the word "Hello." He'll know fifty tricks and won't require a leash. He'll never do anything embarrassing like eat rabbit shit or hump your houseguest's leg. Like my homegirl Tsuki, he'll bring only positive energy to the table:

Unfortunately, I found a very disturbing comment on Tsuki's Daily Puppy profile just now. Tsuki's not actually a puppy- she was rescued by her owner, Jaeby, at age four or five. A man named Steve wrote in saying how he lost a Shiba Inu named Bella on April 11th, 2008, when he was attacked by a pit bull! To make a long story short, he thinks Tsuki is Bella. Then, five years ago, he posts all this sad information like the link to a website he made called Bring Bella Home, and information about Bella's microchip. IS TSUKI BELLA? No more pictures of Tsuki were ever posted after the date Steve left his comment, so probably yeah. Hopefully Tsuki's owners did the right thing and gave Bella back to chill Steve who didn't name her something pseudo-Japanese like an imbecile. Anyway, this is one Shiba Inu-related mystery I sure never wanted to uncover. To end things on a more positive note, here's some really cool motivation for me to end up owning two Shiba Inus:

He ate spices! I love dogs so much! 

LIZ'S THING OF THE WEEK: Bradford from Deerhunter

The first time I saw Deerhunter they were opening for the Ponys sometime six years ago. They came out and Bradford was wearing a dress and kept stumbling around the stage, saying, "Darby Crash...Darby Crash...DARBY CRASH..." over and over again for a really long time. I liked it. I was like, "YOU ARE COOL," in my head. And then I didn't see Deerhunter again until FYF a couple weekends ago, and I missed most of their set because I was watching Devendra Banhart, which was a bad choice. (Not bad because he was bad - I love Devendra, his music is gorgeous and so his face. It was just the wrong venue for him. His songs are very quiet and he probably should have just played in my living room instead.) But the little bit of Deerhunter I saw was terrifying and hypnotizing and amazing, and I was in love with Bradford's wig and crazy dress (as seen in the above photo, which came from here). He's just got this weirdly angelic presence. He's a weird scary angel.

(Also, during the Breeders's set at FYF Bradford came out to sing the chorus to "Saints," and for the verses he crouched down on the stage and stared up at them adoringly, looking like this. So cute. And for the rest of their set he sort of lingered at the edge of the stage and chainsmoked, watching the band super-intently. I took lots of pictures of that too.)

So the next morning I read that BuzzFeed interview where Bradford shit-talks Morrissey the whole time ("Anybody who says they dislike The Beatles is a pretentious jerk. Like me. But I actually like them, I like The Beatles. I like all music, really, except The Smiths") and I loved it, and then I bought Monomania and watched Deerhunter playing "Monomania" on Jimmy Fallon. I watched it like eight hundred times. I love Bradford's bloody mouth and bloody fingers, I love his drama and use of hand movement and how he's always touching his wig. I really like his commitment to the performance. Bradford makes me feel like Commitment is Cool. The last minute of this video's the most exciting:

 


JEN'S THING OF THE WEEK: Kim Gordon Everywhere

Kim Gordon has been everywhere the last few months and I'm loving it. After the Elle article, there was the New Yorker profile. I wish that profile was the length of the entire magazine and the photo was a full page. When I saw there was a profile with her I thought I'm going to hang the photo above my desk before even flipping to the page. All hail the Queen. Unfortunately it was a smaller-ish picture which is NOT what I had in mind. She's cool and smart, we all knew this, but the new info was she has an astrologer and watches TV. She grates beets into salad and dances around. Her new band Body/head has an album coming out next week. You can listen to it online and I have. I love it. I really do. It's my Kim Songs dream come true. I agree with and love Jessica Hopper's gushing  Spin review.  I missed the body/head show that the Julie Ruin ended up playing. Total bummer. I'm also missing the one next week at Union Pool because I guess I forgot to make note of when tickets went on sale and now there are none. She has an art opening on Saturday though, which I will go to. I'm also going to miss her at the New Yorker Festival, but I will try and go to the Kim tribute at Issue Project Room. She's everywhere. Kim Forever.